


Steadier Hands

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [149]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avengers Tower, Caretaking, Established Relationship, Eye Trauma, F/M, Hurt Loki (Marvel), Injury, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Reader-Insert, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26036746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When Loki gets injured in the field, you discover that there’s more to him than the laughing, mischievous facade he wears. And he lets you care for him.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [149]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 12
Kudos: 219





	Steadier Hands

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second-to-last Lullaby before this series goes on a temporary hiatus before coming back but at a much slower posting rate. When school starts, I'll be posting probably only once a week--most likely on Sunday nights, since that's when I need the most comfort, myself. I'm not completely abandoning this series because I know that a lot of people have said that it helps them a lot. 
> 
> I've never done headcanons before BUT I follow some blogs on Tumblr that post gorgeous headcanons so I want to try my hand at it. (It's also a way for me to keep myself writing even a little bit and kind of every day.) I won't be posting headcanons here, obviously, because they're not full-on stories, but even if you don't have a Tumblr account you can anonymously request headcanons for Loki or...really any of the characters I've written for in the last few years! My ask box is [here!](http://grufflepuff-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/ask)

For as strong as he was, and as brave, and as doggedly determined to do whatever he set his mind to, you were starting to realize that Loki was also kind of a baby. Oh, he hid it well. Normally he went through the day, through whole missions, never once allowing even a fraction of weakness to show through. He was stoic. Fierce. Incredibly capable and even admirable.

And then he took some shrapnel to the eye in the field and a doctor gave him some eye-drops to help things heal.

When he got off the jet, the sight of him made your stomach drop into your feet. He was filthy. Blood, dirt, and other gore coated his suit to such a degree that you could see it even against the dark material. His face wasn’t much cleaner. And he held one hand to his eye, clearly holding up a wad of gauze. From where you stood, you could see blood soaking through around his hand. When you ran to him, he didn’t put his hand up to keep you at a safe distance, but he did look away from you uncomfortably. 

“I’m fine,” he said in that same low, velvety voice. You loved the way he sounded when he spoke to you. “Even with only one eye, I can see that look on your face. Breathe, love.”

But you weren’t so easily cowed. “What happened?” Your hands hovered in the air between you. You wanted to reach for the gauze to get a better look at him, but you also didn’t want to risk hurting him even worse. You tilted your head, desperate to get any kind of new angle on his injury, but you didn’t learn much of anything.

He slipped his free arm around your waist and led you out of the hangar. He was taking you to the med bay, you realized, and that didn’t really make you feel any better. He rarely went there of his own volition. You usually had to beg him, plead with him, strike any number of bargains in hopes of convincing him to let someone else stitch him up or even just look him over to make sure he wasn’t all torn up inside. But he was going straight there now without a word? Surely this wasn’t good.

He pulled you into the elevator and then leaned against the back wall. “There was an explosion. I thought I was far enough away, but apparently...I wasn’t. I’m fairly certain the eye is still intact, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

You nestled even closer to him, despite the dirt, despite the filth. “I’m worried about _you_.”

He was right. When you got to the med bay, it took ages for someone to be free to come look at him. You felt antsy and horrendously impatient. You thought you waited for close to an hour before you got up to go drag someone over to Loki, but when you looked at your watch, it was only a few minutes. Loki mostly just seemed amused by the whole situation. Someone did eventually bring him to a more private room and then they had him lie back so they could rinse away all the dirt on his face and get a better look at the damage. You hovered nearby, clutching Loki’s hand and trying to decide whether to steal a glance at the wound as well. You hated seeing him hurt. It was a rarity, of course, with his Asgardian physique, but maybe that made his wounds especially terrifying for you. He did not look at you, as the doctor told him to keep his eyes fixed on the ceiling, but he did squeeze your hand.

The wound was superficial. It looked like there would be no long-term damage to the eye itself, nor to the socket. He’d be uncomfortable for a few days, even with his accelerated healing speed, but as long as he did his best not to mess with his eye very much, he’d heal up fine. The doctor smiled at the both of you and said that if you just waited a few more minutes, she’d go find some eye drops to help lessen the discomfort.

Loki wanted to get out of there right away. You couldn’t blame him, either. He looked to be in desperate need of a shower and then a good night’s sleep. But your overdeveloped sense of empathy made you bed him to wait. When he sat up on the edge of the table, you immediately took your place between his legs and cupped his face in your palms to make him wait. You kissed him carefully and begged him to hold on a few more minutes so that you could leave with the eye drops. He certainly wasn’t thrilled, and in fact he extracted many, many descriptive promises from you in return for his patience, but he did stay.

It didn’t take long at all for you to discover that he didn’t like eye drops. Watching him try to apply them that first time was actually painful for you. He stood in front of the mirror with his head tilted back and the fingers of one hand prying his eyelid open while the other hand dangled the bottle in the air. But he didn’t squeeze it. It looked more like he was simply going to wait for gravity to finally pull a drop out of the bottle. You held your breath as you watched him. When finally a drop started to glisten from the tip of the bottle, he flinched a little, puling the bottle even further away from his eye. The quick movement made the droplet fall prematurely, and when he straightened you were almost certain that you could see it dripping down his cheek. 

He wouldn’t look at you. In fact, he turned his back to you before getting back into position. The second attempt didn’t go much better than the first, and he snarled and slammed the bottle down onto the counter before him. You flinched, but there were definitely giggles bubbling up inside you. He was...afraid of eye drops?

Maybe he could hear that in your breathing. He reached backwards to slam the bathroom door shut and, only moments later, you heard the shower running. 

Normally, you’d join him under the spray after a mission. Neither of you liked being apart for so long, and there was such a lovely, quiet intimacy in washing one another under the spray. But today you hung back. It was clear that he needed some space right now, no matter how hollowly it made your chest ache. He’d taken himself straight to the med bay, and surely that was deserving of some kind of reward. So you let him be. Instead of barging in on him, you set about folding down the blankets on his bed and grabbing a pair of sleep-clothes for him to change into.

You sat yourself on the edge of his bed and then just...waited. After some time, he opened the bathroom door again and came out with a towel wrapped around his hips. He was all scraped up, and far too much of his pale skin was marred with angry bruises that threatened to become worse as he slept. Your stomach clenched uncomfortably, and you tried not to stare. 

He gave you a gentle smile and came closer to take the clothing from you. “It’s alright,” he said to you again. “I’m alright. Give me a few days, gentle heart, and I’ll be perfect as ever.” His smile turned wolfish, then, and you had to look away as he pulled on his pair of shorts.

You didn’t really want to ask, but you couldn’t help it: “Did...did you get the eye drops sorted out?” 

He groaned and turned away from you as he scrubbed the towel vigorously through his hair. “I don’t need those either. My body is so different from yours. I’ll be fine.”

So that was a _no_ , then. You didn’t push it, at first. You watched the muscles in his back and arms and maybe you let your eyes rake down a little lower, along his ass, along his calves. His body was _perfect_. When he was finished with his hair, he draped his towel over the arm of a chair and collapsed into bed with a groan. Neither of you spoke for a while, and you couldn’t miss the way his hand kept moving towards his eye, like he desperately wanted to touch it. Eyes were so sensitive. Once, when you were younger, you’d gotten a nasty scratch across your cornea, and the discomfort of healing had nearly driven you mad. Godlike body or not, it was clear that this was bothering Loki at least as much as it bothered you. You steeled something inside yourself and pulled yourself to your feet to go into his bathroom.

The bottle was still there, right where he’d slammed it down. You picked it up and rejoined him in his bedroom, sitting yourself against the headboard and patting your lap. “Come here,” you said in a voice that was surprisingly firm. “Put your head in my lap.”

“Demanding, aren’t we?” He didn’t move, but you could hear the amused smile that was curling his lips. He had a point. You were usually more submissive than this. You weren’t used to ordering him around. But you just furrowed your brows and reached to take his arm. He looked at you then, and the loving, almost pleading look in his good eye was very nearly enough to override the angry blood-red color of the other one. “You really don’t need to worry yourself, love. I’ll be halfway to healed by morning.”

“Not if you can’t fall asleep. Not if, when you do fall asleep, you spend all night rubbing your eye. Come here.” You kept your face stony. It must have worked, because you watched his resolve waver a bit, and, sure enough, he laid his head in your lap.

“Oh, my little dove, I hope you enjoy this role-reversal while it lasts, because you can bet that I’ll be extracting my revenge from you shortly.” His words, though quiet and fond, held that iron resolve that you loved about him. 

“I know.” In comparison to his voice, yours sounded much more like a ragged whisper. You combed your fingers through his hair, pulling it away from his face. “But I don’t mind, Loki, if it means you’ll let me take care of you for a while.”

His only response was a quiet hum. He liked it when you played with his hair. _You_ liked it when you played with his hair. You could sit like this for hours, the both of you slipping into peaceful trances. But not right now. You had a job to do. You trailed your fingers down his forehead, along his cheekbone, and then gently touched his eyebrow in warning. He opened his eyes for you and did not flinch when you reached to take a gentle hold of his eyelid. 

“Just look at me, okay? Don’t blink, don’t look at the eye drops, just keep your eyes on me. It’ll be over in a second and then you can sleep.” You did your best to keep your eyes fixed on his, as well, once you’d lined up the bottle with where it needed to be and checked the tip for a moment to see how quickly the drops would come out. 

“This does seem better than doing it myself,” he joked. You were prepared for something like that, though, so even when he did his best to smirk at you, it didn’t throw off the alignment of the bottle. You gave him a warning look and then carefully squeezed out a couple of drops into his eye, bracing his eyelid so he couldn’t cringe away after the first. They both landed perfectly, exactly where you wanted them, and then you pressed your palm cautiously against his eye once you’d allowed it to close.

“Done,” you said softly. He growled again, but this time he didn’t sound nearly as angry or frustrated. You leaned over a bit to place the bottle on his nightstand, and he held his hand against yours to keep it there on his eye. “You’re actually a much better patient than I would have thought, you know.”

“And if the doctors in the med bay were half so lovely as you, perhaps I wouldn’t mind going as much.” 

You laughed quietly and began to work the fingers of your recently-freed hand through his hair again. You guided him to sleep there in your lap, his hand against yours. As his breath grew deeper, more steady, you could feel your love swelling in your chest. This man. This lovely, strong, _precious_ man.


End file.
